Lessons from Charles Dickens on How to Be Productive

Small business owners are often searching for ways to be more productive. If you’re looking for tips on how to whittle down your to-do list faster, there’s no better source of inspiration than the creative geniuses who have made mankind great.

More importantly, the infographic shows us the diligent routines that many creative greats followed in order to maximize their productivity. I want to take a detailed look at a day in the life of Charles Dickens and talk about the lessons we can learn from how he spent his time.

1. Get a good night’s sleep

Charles Dickens slept from midnight until seven in the morning every day, which is not far off from the commonly-cited figure of eight hours a night.

Everyone has different sleep needs, but many of us try to get by with less than our bodies demand. Follow Dickens’ advice and sleep well every night—he ended up publishing more than twenty novels in his lifetime, so there was still plenty of time left for work.

If you’re having trouble figuring out how much sleep you need, a wearable tech device like UP from Jawbone can record your sleep cycles for you. With a gadget like this, it’s easy to know just how much of that essential REM sleep you’re actually getting.

2. Wake up naturally

Waking up at a set time became popular during the Industrial Revolution, when hired men called Knocker-ups would pound on windows with long sticks at a requested time each morning.

If you wake up groggy to the sound of a cell phone ringtone at the same time each morning, this is likely doing your body a disservice. Waking up according to your body’s natural rhythm is a great foundation for a productive day.

If you need a little help getting up at the right time, try an app like Sleep Cycle, which analyzes your sleeping patterns and wakes you up when you’re in the lightest stage of sleep.

Unfortunately, most people’s schedules don’t allow them to wake up whenever they feel like it. That’s why I recommend giving yourself an hour, like Dickens did, so that you have a little leeway to wake up naturally without being late for work.

3. Eat a healthy breakfast

Dickens also dedicated an hour each morning just to eat his breakfast. Many writers say that they’re able to do their best work after giving their subconscious some time to chew on different ideas. By turning off your phone and relaxing during breakfast, you’ll be making the rest of the work you do throughout the day way more productive.

4. Work during your most productive hours

While some people are night owls, the majority of us work best in the mornings, when we’re refreshed from a good night’s sleep. Dickens was a morning person, working from nine to two every day, sequestered in his study “in absolute quiet.”

Just like Dickens, it’s important to block out a specific time just for work and also to determine the environment in which you work best in order to maximize productivity.

For time blocking, simply marking off a few hours in a calendar goes a long way. Productive people have told me that they set aside time for work and tell themselves, “I don’t have to work during that time, but I can’t do anything else.” If the choice is between work and boredom, most people will choose to work.

Close the door, turn off email, and get started with a small task to build up momentum.

5. Exercise, exercise, exercise

Only one in three American adults get the recommended amount of weekly exercise. While you probably can’t take three hours out of your day to exercise like Dickens did, you can likely spare at least 30 minutes daily for a brisk walk or light jog.

The increased blood flow and endorphins can give you much more energy than any cup of coffee could and, in fact, one writer even found that his overall cognitive performance improved 12% after exercising but only 6% after a cup of coffee.

Need some more motivation? Try GymPact, an app that gets you to pay up if you don’t work out.

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As a Customer Support Geek, Aeramis strives to help Jimdo's customers by sharing her web expertise. She is a talented graphic designer, and she works on a number of web projects in her free time. When she isn't answering your questions about Jimdo, Aeramis loves to travel and eat good food.

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Your title caught my eye – I didn’t exactly connect Charles Dickens with modern productivity before now, but clearly he is a classic in many ways. There truly is nothing new under the sun and some productivity tools are just as effective as they were back then and will be in the future. I’m not so sure that I agree with the “wake up naturally” pre-requisite for productivity – it seems to work better for me to get up at the same time whether I wake up naturally or not. Perhaps it would be better to recommend going to sleep naturally instead meaning going to bed earlier in the evening as soon as you feel your fatigue level spiking.

Great point, Rebekah. Maybe a better way to put the message generally, as you’re saying it, is to trust your body.

Thanks a lot for your comment. Definitely agree that great productivity advice isn’t as transient as it would appear, and looking toward time-tested tips is a better strategy than trying out all the latest tools.

The best things are most often simple – and the “Dickens Lessons” are very user-friendly! Most of the great guys of yonder years had weird ‘physical styles-apperances’ or behaviour patterns, which makes one bracket Geniuses with at least a small amount of eccentricity. Perhaps too much of focus on a particular dimension unsettles in others. Wonder how Charles Dickens maintained his signature beard, or did he at all?